A classmate described her spanking

Hotspur, it may not have been true, but she told it as the truth. I reported the story as I heard it. If I wanted to make something up, I'd post it as a story. Just let me add that where I grew up, truth is often stranger than fiction.

It does sound like a rather cruel and drawn out punishment for a girl of the age that she must have been at the time. I once saw a girl in 7th grade here be punished for something she'd done in science class. Our teacher was rather strict and old fashioned (he was at one of those British boarding schools where caning was par for the course) corporal punishment had been banned at state run schools, which is what this was, so he had the girl come up to the front of the class and had her stand on a stool where everyone could see her for the rest of the class. That was it. She was absolutely mortified (her name was Cherry, and she spent the time standing on the stool, with her face about as red as the fruit she was named after), she later claimed it was the worst punishment she'd ever had, really hated the teacher for making her do it, too. She never acted up in his class again, though. I can imagine the girl who told Wheatwine the story was every bit as embarrassed as Cherry, only with the extra dose of pain that the paddle handed out at irregular intervals.

I wonder what he was writing on the board? It seems an odd thing to do if it wasn't related to the punishment somehow.

Standing or sitting on a 'cutty stool' as a punishment has a long tradition in Scotland. It used to be the custom that those guilty of some sin or other - such as drawing water from a well on a Sunday - were made to occupy the cutty stool, sitting facing the congregation, during the Sunday church service, while the minister lectured them from the pulpit!

It could have happened. I had heard of true stranger stories. In that period of time, a teacher could have probably gotten away with almost anything.

You may be ignoring one important fact Hotspur. As someone once nearly said, The past was a foreign country: they did things differently!

And truth is very often stranger than fiction.

Then as a wrinkly 67 year old I'm probably better qualified than most to comment!

Sorry I thought you might be young and cynical!! Seems I was partly misjudging you.

I completely agree with bendover. If this had been one of my kids, this guy would probably be 6 feet under. I'm taking this as a true story and as such, the guy clearly had a spanking fetish and used his authority as a teacher to carry out said fetish on a child. This could clearly have long term psychological effects on a girl that age subjected to that kind of humiliation. It's one thing to write fiction and have our characters suffer some embarrassment and humiliation as part of the punishment. Lord knows some of my female teenage characters have received some pretty humiliating punishment. Writing fiction is one thing but when we hear about real life situations involving kids, that's another. Even in 1960 - 1961 this guy could have wound up in real trouble had this been reported. Perhaps it was and nothing happened, I don't know. I am sorry for the girl and again, thankful it wasn't one of my daughter's.

I did hear a story of a kid at a Catholic Brothers school who was hit by one of the brothers with a hammer, apparently the teacher (a woodwork teacher) was in the habit of lashing out with whatever was to hand. He knocked the poor kid out and the next day his father turned up with his son, went to the house the brothers shared and knocked on the door. The brother who had hit the kid answered it. Dad looked at his son and asked 'Is that him?' the boy nodded and the father laid him out with one punch. They went into the school, collected the son's belongings and left the school for good.